Understanding and Supporting Bilingual Children

Testimonial

I am the father of a 7-year-old girl whose birth language was Thai but who quickly acquired English when we adopted her in the UK at age 4.  My wife is native bilingual in English/Spanish but up until now English has been both the home and school language, and our daughter has only had minor exposure to Spanish.  We are planning to spend next year in Spain (Year 4 of primary school), and I initially had email correspondence with Froso because we were concerned that we had left it a bit late to suddenly immerse our daughter in a Spanish-language school environment.  I followed up our emails by attending her talk at ICH in November, 2016 partly to seek further advice, and partly because I'm interested in the subject anyway, and not just as a parent.  Although the talk's venue meant that it was an audience of mostly academics, it was a practical rather than academic talk, as the audience consisted of parents in bi-/multilingual households who sought information in raising their children bi-/ multilingually. It is clear that Froso is interested in child multilingualism in all its manifestations in a wide variety of family circumstances.  Both the talk and the Q&A session were of interest and relevance to me, even when touching on family situations which were not wholly similar to my own.  It was also nice to observe that Froso's academic interest in the subject matter goes completely hand-in-hand with the satisfaction she gets in providing parents with education and advice.

Jim Levin - Financial Assistant, UCL